Skip to Main Content

Electrical Engineering Research Guide: Articles

Guide to resources for electrical engineering and related topics.

Accessing Library Databases and Journals From Off Campus

We license many of our databases for use by SDSU students, faculty, and staff. To access them from off campus, you will need to log into our proxy server. When prompted to log in:

Students: Use your jacks e-mail username and password (use the whole e-mail address as the username).

Faculty/Staff: Use your campus login credentials.

Databases for Topic

These are the best databases we have for research in Electrical Engineering. There are more options, especially for cross-disciplinary research on the Secondary Databases tab. You can see all of our databases on the Databases A-Z list.

In addition to the databases listed above, the following databases can be useful in finding articles and other resources related to health, physical education, and recreation.

You can browse our journals by topic.

Or, search for a specific journal title

Search for journal titles

Search Alerts

Search alerts allow you to save searches and have them run automatically with the results being sent to you periodically. Check who provides the database you use most often and follow the instructions below.

Ebsco database search alert instructions.

ProQuest database search alert instructions.

Web of Science (Clarivate) database search alert instructions.

If your database is not from Ebsco, ProQuest, or Web of Science, contact your subject librarian for help.

Interlibrary Loan

Although Briggs Library has an extensive collection, you may need items that are not available at the Library. No worries! You can request those articles, books, and other materials through Interlibrary Loan.

Keep in mind that the process may take from a week to ten days. Start your research early!

Many of our databases have an Interlibrary Loan Request button for articles not available in that particular database. Before submitting the loan request, be sure to check our Journals List for the title of the source or periodical (i.e. New York Times).

For more information on Interlibrary Loan, see our ILL FAQ.

Terminology: Journal/Magazine

Are you confused about the difference between journals and magazines? No problem, here is what to look for to determine which you have.

Journals: Content is written to inform the reader.

  • Author(s) named and credentials given
  • Sources cited in the article
  • Bibliography at the end (often it is long)
  • Articles report on research or review the current state of a topic
  • Articles tend to be long
  • Illustrations are usually graphs and charts and are necessary to understand the text
  • Few if any advertisements in the journal

Magazines: Content is written to entertain the reader.

  • Author is often not named
  • If sources are given, they are not cited entirely
  • No bibliography
  • Articles report on events and people, if research is reported, it is not in detail
  • Articles are short
  • Illustrations are often in color and are intended to entertain
  • Lots of advertisements for a wide variety of products